THE MODERN DILEMMA 191

It took Huxley ten years to overcome cynicism and
frustration. And gradually the conviction dawned up-
on him that society cannot be changed unless and until
the individual sensibility has been purified of all preju-
dices and is ready to take that final step towards self-
realization which lies in self-less and non-attached ac-
tion. Ends and Means and After Many a Summer pro-
vide us with many hints as to where this method of self-
realization is to come from : it is always the East, Hin-
duism, Buddhism, Confucius, or the mediaeval Euro-
pean mystics. But Huxley is also the first to warn
his readers of the dangers involved in an interest
in the JBast which is 'undisciplined' and not yet ready
to live UD to the demands of one's own consriencc:
There is a danger that the present wide-soread interest
in oriental osvrfiology and o^ilosoohv mav lead, through
misunderstanding to a recrudescence of the grossest form
of simpfsHHon/*

This therefore, must he emphasized: Huxley's in-
terest in the East is essentially 'Dractical'. He is concern-
ed with it in the same way as a doctor is with the medi-
cines which are needed to cure his natient. And since
Huxley's 'oatient' is contemporary Western civilization
with its false values and its insistence on 'action' as a
dynamic principle of life, he must needs ask himself
whether actions—if morally evil—can serve a morally
good purpose. A reply to this question can hardly be
expected from th£ West with its worship of brute animal
power, its dictatorships, its wars. Action becomes mean-
ingful only if the individual himself has been *regene-

* Ends and Means, p. 228.